10 conflict Flashcards
define conflict
“Struggle over values and claims to scarce status, power and resources in which the aims of the opponents are to neutralize, injure or eliminate their rivals” (Coser, 1964 [1956], p. 8)
* Conflict is not necessarily negative * It can fuel social change, help tackle oppression, defend one’s space, introduce new ideas, and challenge dogma (McKinaly & McVittie, 2008)
link to communication, cooperation and conflict
- Conflict involves small to large departures from otherwise prevailing cooperative patterns of communication
- The overarching normative pressure to be cooperative places constraints on conflict escalation
one-at-a-time rule
- Speaker’s talk projects possible completion (week 3)
- Next speaker has a right to start at that possible completion—not before (more precisely, not in ways that can be heard as interruptive)
- Speakers can depart from this norm by starting to talk early, before the prior speaker’s turn has come to possible completion
- This can be a way of being confrontational in conversation
preference for agreement/ acceptance link to conflict
- We saw that speakers typically mitigate disagreeing responses by using delays, prefaces, and explanations (week 9)(avoids conflict - deviating from this can mean conflict)
an unmitigated dispreferred response could be a sign of tension
departure from the norm: dispreferred responses
- Sometimes, speakers do not delay or mitigate a dis-preferred response (e.g., a rejection)
- With this, they achieve a particular communicative effect: a flat rejection (Kendrick and Torreira, 2015)
- One context for flat rejections (although not the only one) is an emerging conflict
a flat rejection
when a dispreferred response is unmitigated/ not hedged
signs of tension
- We can learn to spot several early signs of tension, which are possible harbingers of an emerging conflict:
* skipped openings, * abrupt requests for explanations, * accusations, * early turn starts,
flat disagreements
How conflicts emerge (2 ways)
Misalignment and disaffiliation
The initiating action invites collaboration in two ways:
alignment
affiliation
alignment
A response that matches the structure of the initiating action. We call this alignment.
affiliation
A response that embodies a matching position or stance (e.g., agreeing, granting, accepting).
unresolved misalignments can lead to what
leads to disaffiliation, which can lead to a break down in cooperation
no progress can be made as sequence cannot be completed
(which is why police can use physical coercion to overcome resistance and bring the sequence to completion)
Conflict escalation
- Participant can move from withholding alignment (see standoffs) to reciprocal complaints or accusations
- Research has shown some of the ingredients that contribute to escalation (Dersley & Wootton, 2001; Pomerantz & Sanders, 2013)
- Accusations of enduring (rather one-off) faults; judging a person rather than their actions (e.g., “Whenever I hit you it was because you lie you know, you a liar you know”)
- Accusations are unmitigated; the accuser takes responsibility for their own words (e.g., “I’m fed up with it”)
polarisation
escalation of conflict - locked into a cycle of reciprocal accusations (back and forth)
(Watzlawick et al 1967) conflict often involves what
a vicious cycle of reciprocal accusations
politeness theory (Brown & Levinson 1987): 2 types of face
positive face = a basic need to maintain a positive self image and be appreciated
negative face = basic need to be free of imposition by others
unilateral exits
a pps can decide to leave the scene as a statement of another’s unwillingness/ inability to reach a compromise
e.g. walking out, or hanging up
de-esculation and pre-emtion
concepts considered together
* These practices can be used to de-escalate emerging tensions or pre-empt them
pre-empting escalation
tone down extent of disagreement:
- hedging
- exits from incipient conflicts (can restart)
- stories that introduce analogies
- explanations for refusals to cooperate
- subverting a question
stories that introduce analogies de-escalate how?
Rather than directly dissagreeing, offers a personal experience which would oppose her views
subverting the terms of a question: example
covert resistance rather than an up-front opposition
e.g. equivocating
e.g. ‘I have said this before’
summary of of de-escalation
- Speakers can use several communication practices to mitigate the extent of their non-cooperation, thus de-escalating emerging tensions and conflicts (or pre-empting escalation). These practices:
○ Display sensitivity to the other’s perspective □ E.g. hedging ○ Manage participation frameworks and sequences of action □ e.g. exiting or restarting ○ Mobilise personal experience □ E.g. telling a personal story ○ Draw on rules associated with activities and settings □ E.g. "I can't talk for them.." ○ Mobilise covert resistance rather than up-front opposition □ E.g. equivocation/ politician dodging
pre-empting conflict: parent and children
parents typically give children opportunities to self-correct and later use stronger directives
children’s non-cooperation with parents directives = tension and conflict
so children can pre-emp conflict and mix resistance with a show of cooperation (kent 2012)
summary
what conflict is
departures from conversational norms as signs of tension
actions that can promote conflict escalation
communication practices that mitigate opposition
ways of pre-empting conflict
reading: the usefulness of disagreement
conflicts con arise in non-aggressive contexts (not always negative)
insults as a form of teasing play also arises among adults
participants sometimes rely upon argument and dispute in order to accomplish conversational goals which are unrelated to aggression
reading: where does playful disputes turn into conflict?
Itakura (2001) explains conversational domin-ance in terms of asymmetry
e.g. retaining the conversational floor for extended period, controlling when the other can speak
- power isrelated to gender, in that it is a tactic more oftenpursued by men than by women.
However, Goodwin (2002a, 2002b) has shown how power asymmetries of this sort can also be associated with domination within single-sex groups of young schoolgirls
reading: denials (disguising aggression)
aggressors seek to minimise/ deny occurrence of aggression
surprisingly, the same sorts of denials can arise in the accounts of third parties and even in the accounts of victims themselves
(the absence of aggression is percieved as a social norm)
reading: making aggression invisible
Berman (2000) has suggested that victims of vio-lence may themselves employ forms of discoursewhich conceal that violence
often avoid discussing the why of the events that occur
social norm
